The Manatees

The Florida Manatee
Trichechus manatus latirostris

A special Manatee alert!

If you are about to choose a new License plate

for your Florida vehicle,

please consider choosing the Manatee plate.

They are being chosen less and less and

are in serious danger of being

removed from the list of Florida plates.

This will in turn mean that a great deal of the money

that has been coming in for Manatee protection,

will cease to exist.

This is not a good thing.

Please think about these very Endangered animals and

what our world would be like if they were no longer in it.

Please choose a Manatee License Plate and then tell a friend.~

The Florida Manatees which are shaped somewhat like a seal,

have two flipper arms, thick greyish skin

and whiskers on their upper lip.

Their length is about 10 feet and they weigh nearly a 1,000 pounds.

The Manatees closest ancestor is the elephant and their habitats

are slow moving shallow waters, like the St. John's River and canals,

salt water bays, estuaries and coastal areas abundant with seagrass.

Manatees eat aquatic plants and can consume as much

as 10-15 % of their body weight daily.

In the summer, the Manatees will travel as

far north as Virginia and as far west as Alabama.

They remain in Florida in the winter because of the many warm

spring fed waters found there that they need to survive.

The warm water around Nuclear power plants has attracted them,

the possible negative affect of this on them remains to be seen.

The Manatee are completely defenseless, shy, reclusive and harmless.

This gentle giant has been at the center of controversy for many years

but, unless a great deal more is done to preserve them,

the Manatee will soon go the way of the Dodo bird.

Each year many of them are killed by recreational

boaters who race through Florida waterways

and the guarded areas where the Manatee live.

Much has been done in the past to attempt to protect them,

but the purse strings of the boating community are very deep

and they are not pleased with the Manatee zone speed signs

that have been put in many of Florida's waterways.

One of my fondest memories is of the time that my children

and I spent in the water with them at Blue Springs State Park.

These sweet, curious creatures whose only enemy is man,

have been, like so many others animals,

crowded out of their natural habitats.

Now the Manatee are dependent upon us for their well being,

and we must be their guardians, because

we have left them with little other choice.

West Indian Manatee

Florida's Fountain of Youth

An MSNBC News Story about Manatees

U.S. FWS Division of Endangered Species

A Discovery.com News Story About Manatees

Manatee Overview from Florida Power and Light

Fast Boats and the Endangered Manatees: Florida Environment Radio

Walking with the Alligators

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Last edited January 9, 2009

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